How to improve the PR and Marketing in European basketball? (I)
This was an important issue even before the Coronavirus outbreak, but now it becomes more significant than ever. The big difference between American basketball and the European one is not only the quality of the players but can be seen as well on many other aspects: better and larger broadcasting, more people involved in basketball as PR and marketing staff, paid journalists to write more about the clubs, to headline their records, organizing more public events involving the community, professional websites and social media pages and so on.
It’s all about money, but here in Europe we have as well money, but we don’t spend them on these things. We don’t consider them necessary and that’s why in the long run we lose more because we invest less. This has to be a lesson for the European clubs to reoriented their budgets and dedicated a bit more to improve their image and to build a stronger and bigger fan base. Except for maybe 20-25 clubs in Europe, who invest some money in their image, the other ones are living in the “Stone Age” of PR and Marketing. Here is my advice for the basketball organizations from Europe who want to grow in popularity:
- create a professional website and update it every day with news about your team. Many basketball websites are looking like the 2000’s websites, poor and completely embarrassing.
- Create and update daily Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages, social media is more important than you think and many poor basketball clubs don’t give a sh*t about it! It’s there and it’s almost for free: use it at full capacity!
- The website has to have a version in English as well, nobody is speaking Ukrainian, Turkish or Bulgarian except the citizens from your country. If you want to promote your activities and to be known everywhere in Europe or including outside Europe, don’t be cheap and invest some money for the English version of your website too. It will help a lot many people to stay in touch with the news of your club.
This article will be continued tomorrow with the second part of advice!
Photo: Image by THE 5TH from Pixabay
Gratian Cormos
